GOTHAM: For One Kiss & GOTHAM DEUX
by Catheryne
Summary: After a traumatic incident, Chloe leaves her past behind to start again in Gotham City, until a visitor from Smallville turns her fragile new life upside down. complete
1. Cold Grey Night

GOTHAM : For One Kiss  
  
The blonde woman was unused to the freezing temperature. She huddled lower under her thick coat, shivering against the biting air of the dark city. She hurried down the street, desperately seeking for a warm stopover before continuing on her pointless wandering.  
  
Chloe Sullivan lit up at the sight of a blinking sign that was so old that it flickered sporadically, hung dangerously at one end, and now only read C FF EHOU E. Despite the dubious appearance of the shop, Chloe needed her fix too badly to care. She hurried over to the establishment and looked down at the door handle. Grimy. She cringed. She would not have been the reporter that she had become if she would let possibly fatal germs bring her down though. She closed her gloved hand over it, mentally swearing to throw out the gloves before even stepping back into her newly leased very ancient apartment.  
  
When she entered the shop, all eyes turned to her. She felt each of the customers look her over, weigh her really, without even turning their heads. It made her feel so uncomfortable, the way they measured her from the corners of their eyes, as though she were not even worthy enough of a full on appraisal. The coldness that made her shiver now had nothing to do with the weather, although it was even colder in here than it was out there if it were possible.  
  
She briskly made her way to the counter, both to get out of their sight as soon as possible and to get the blood circulating in her legs. She was about to rest her arms on the counter when she remembered to inspect it first. Upon inspection, she decided to let her heavy arms rest by her sides.  
  
"A cup of coffee to go," she told the sleepy-eyed attendant. "Could you hurry?"  
  
'Martha,' her name tag stated (ironic to find someone across the country as far from Mrs Kent as one could get) looked at her with no trace that she had registered Chloe's order until a minute of two later, she pointed to a list on the unsanitary counter. "Pick your poison," she said monotonously.  
  
Chloe grimaced at the words. She probably would be buying poison if she continued here. "Never mind," she muttered, and hurried out the door.  
  
"Stupid bitch prolly just wanted to get out of the cold," 'Martha' said from the counter.  
  
Chloe rolled her eyes but did not bother to correct the woman on her assumption. One thing she had learned after two years living with a man she adored beyond anyone else in the world-you had to choose only those worthy enough to fight your battles with. It was no use expending your strength on someone you would never encounter again. She mentally thanked his memory.  
  
Once outside the shop, Chloe leaned against the wall, not caring that it had probably been pissed on by dozens of men over the course of the day. As always whenever his face fleeted through her mind, her knees weakened and it was all she could do to stay on her feet. She blinked away the tears that threatened to fall.  
  
She did not want to do this. Really. She tried to keep herself from doing this whenever the urge hit her. But now, in this dark, strange city that was so ugly and smelly that her head ached just being there, freezing under the falling snow, Chloe needed to do it. She looked around her to make sure that nobody was around. The bag under her coat contained her entire life. To lose it would push her over the edge. It was not so much as the money it contained. The bag held treasures that were beyond price, and departing Kansas to leave the past behind, she could never leave them-four cards: two for birthdays and another two for Christmas, all containing messages in his beautiful script; the half-inch thick sheaf of photographs taken of them over the months by their friends; one of his hundred white handkerchiefs, special because it was the one stained dark brown from the last time she held him; and a ring, the only one of those treasures that would probably be worth something to thieves.  
  
Chloe took the blue and white envelope and pulled out the picture on top of the others. A tear rolled down her eye. She was laughing there, under the sun. She could still remember how warmth felt like if she closed her eyes and thought hard enough. She hadn't been warm for so long. From the moment she left, she had sought places that would be as far from the flowers and meadows of Smallville where they met, and the steel and high glass windows of Metropolis where they had fallen in love. Gotham City, with its cold grey slabs of stone and perpetual nighttime was as perfect as anywhere else she had been.  
  
She shook her head to clear her thoughts and hastily wiped her eyes, vaguely remembering how dirty her gloves probably were now. It served its purpose though, and she was able to see the photo again through drier eyes. He was grinning at her, even though she was looking the other way. She saw all the love in his eyes reflected there.  
  
A movement from the alley caught her attention. She slipped the picture and the envelope back in her bag. Chloe hurried away from the shop and found herself at the beginning of what appeared to be the main street of the city. It was still dreary, but it seemed less dangerous than the part that she had previously been in.  
  
She breathed in deep and felt her nostrils run numb. She liked the feeling of the almost pain that she was in, with her shoes too Kansas to use in the snow, and her coat too thin to keep away the frostbite. Chloe felt for her bag and then proceeded to walk through the empty streets of Gotham. 


	2. Finding Warmth

ii. Finding Warmth  
  
She had not reached very far when the snowflakes that had earlier been teasing her cheeks began to feel heavy on her shoulders. Chloe glanced up at the sky and saw the countless white spots falling heavier. Knowing that she would not make it back to her apartment or to one of Gotham's notoriously inept transportation system, she decided to slip into the first building that she saw.  
  
Chloe stood at the lobby brushing off the snow from her Kansas coat. The building was heated. She sighed in pleasure. A while later she noticed that a pool of murky liquid had formed around her boots, likely from the ice that encrusted her feet.  
  
Having lived in Smallville for most of her teenage years, she was aware of a pair of eyes watching her the entire time. She looked towards the direction of the gaze and found the guard's regard. Chloe nodded briskly to the man, who was only doing his job. She did not appear to be a dangerous character really. She probably looked like a wet chick. Chloe walked towards the elevators to get out of the lobby and appear as though she really had business in there.  
  
The ding of the elevator was a welcome respite from the guard's watchful eye. Chloe stepped into the furbished steel and mahogany and noted for the first time how luxurious her surroundings were. It was a first for her in this city. It hit her that it was sinful to live and work in so much wealth while the rest of the city was so desperate.  
  
The ride provided her with the silence and privacy to think. She leaned her head back against the mahogany lining of the elevator and closed her eyes. She felt the elevator stop and a person get in. Chloe figured she could just ride up ad down until she was warm and rested enough to walk back to her apartment.  
  
And then she felt it again. Just the way it felt down at the lobby. Chloe opened her eyes to find a pair of blue eyes looking directly at her. It must be the city. She had not gone to any place where she had not been mauled by stares. "Do you have a problem?" she asked the man directly.  
  
Wide shoulders shrugged, bringing her attention to the good build underneath the expensive suit. She swallowed hard at that, remembering another man in another expensive suit-another pair of shoulders and firm muscles that she had every right to touch. "I was wondering if I can help you," he stated in a deep voice. "I go home this late and there's usually no one else but security in the building."  
  
A blush stained her cheeks at his words. Chloe grimaced in combined shame and apology. "I'm sorry I was so rude. The city is getting to me."  
  
The man in front of her nodded. "So was there a particular reason that you're in the building?"  
  
Chloe gave him a shy smile and shook her head. "I was only escaping from the snow. This was the first building I entered that didn't appear to be a safety hazard."  
  
The blue eyes raked down her clothes and shoes. "Caught unprepared then. Odd since it's been like this for the past month. You're not from around here then?"  
  
"No actually. Tornadoes I can take, but not snow like this. I'm from Kansas."  
  
The dark-haired man's lips curved to a degree that she deemed enough to be called a smile. "Welcome to Gotham City, Dorothy."  
  
Chloe smiled back in return. "Chloe."  
  
"Let me buy you coffee. The lounge at the building annex is kept open at all hours." Chloe hesitated at the invitation. "My driver informs me that the snow has not let up yet. He won't be picking me up for a while yet. We'll drive you home."  
  
"Well then thank you-"  
  
"Bruce."  
  
Chloe's eyes went wide. "Bruce Wayne?"  
  
"I see my reputation precedes me. Believe me, they are more talk than truth."  
  
She shook her head. Of all the buildings to walk into, she had to walk into his. "Your exploits are legendary, Mr Wayne."  
  
"Bruce please. We're both stranded anyway. That should bring us closer."  
  
"Models, daughters of business acquaintances, even psychiatrists. The only constant about your social life is that you'll turn up with a different woman hanging from your arm with every event."  
  
He looked at her as they walked through the covered walkway leading to the other building, impressed. "I never seem to find one that I can have a good conversation with."  
  
"Maybe you should try talking to them first before asking them out on a date."  
  
Bruce chuckled. Chloe smiled when he held the door open for her. In high school she always had to do it herself. Two years living with. It had spoiled her in little courtesies that made her feel like a woman. When they reached a table, Bruce Wayne pulled a chair for her first. Training in expensive schools would necessarily give him the same habits.  
  
If you were the owner of a conglomerate as expansive as Wayne Enterprises, you will receive your order in the blink of an eye. This was service that she had gotten used to in Metropolis and never thought she would experience again. A steaming cup of coffee in front of each of them and Chloe noticed that she had tuned out his voice.  
  
"I'm sorry. What were you saying?"  
  
Bruce merely grinned at her. "The smell of coffee takes you someplace beyond earth too?" Chloe nodded eagerly. "What brings you to Gotham?" he repeated.  
  
She blinked rapidly, lost for words. "I'd rather not talk about it."  
  
"Sensitive topic then."  
  
"You could say that. Is that okay?"  
  
"We all have our secrets," he told her. "You're entitled to yours."  
  
She asked him if it was always so cold in Gotham City. Bruce admitted that it often was.  
  
"You get used to it," he assured her. "It will take time before you find the warmth in this cold but eventually it will happen."  
  
Chloe didn't want to remember warmth anymore. Warm was a morning in Smallville, waiting for the bus to take her home. Warm was her father's embrace on her graduation day. Warm was Mrs Kent's smile when she waved her into her kitchen.  
  
Warm was Lex's blood spilling onto her hand while she held a pathetic linen handkerchief over his wound the last day she kissed his lips. 


	3. Way It Was

iii. Way It Was  
  
Two and a half years earlier  
  
The year was 2008 and Chloe Sullivan walked into the private room in the hospital to a shock of pink balloons and various white and brown stuffed bears. She had hurriedly left her class in the middle of an exam, tossing the half-completed paper on the proctor's desk. Her phone had rang twice and stopped. She knew that the missed call indicated that Lana had gone into labor. It was a code that she and Pete had worked out.  
  
She felt oddly regretful about Lana's decision to quit college their third year and settle down with Pete. It was not that she disapproved of the marriage. She was one of the people who were most ecstatic about the news of their engagement. It was only that in a little over a year, Lana could have finished her course. Pondering that, exactly ten months ago, she had run into an old friend from Smallville who reminded her that different women had different goals in life. Fulfillment for Lana Lang was different from her definition of it. It did not mean that Lana's decision was the bad one.  
  
Remembering that as the start of the ten months that changed her life forever, a smile spread over her face. She approached the still beautiful young woman on the bed, looking immaculate despite having gone through a remarkable five hours of labor. Lana held a tiny baby in her arms. Asleep, Chloe could not see the color of its eyes. She reached out and run her fingers over the baby's downy hair. From the blanket, she could guess that it was a girl. Still, knowing Lana's color preference, it could just as well be a boy that his mom swaddled in baby pink.  
  
"It's a little girl," Lana told Chloe, her eyes shining brightly. "She's so beautiful, isn't she?"  
  
"Of course, Lana." Chloe wondered when she'd become so emotional that she was choked up at the sight of a friend holding her baby with another friend. "You're her mom."  
  
She heard the door open and close behind her. Chloe was so enraptured with the tiny pink lips and long lashes that she did not turn around to greet the newcomers.  
  
"So when can we take pictures of you looking like this?"  
  
That voice made her whirl. Chloe met the crinkled eyes of Lex Luthor, standing between Clark and the new father Pete. "Some of us were not meant for this, Mr Luthor."  
  
He nodded, acknowledging an amount of truth in her statement. "But I don't believe that about you, Ms Sullivan. I think you'll look even more gorgeous with a baby in your arms. Sexier than hell with a swollen stomach too."  
  
Chloe blushed at his words and hid her embarrassment with a laugh. She smiled at him. "Hello Lex." She nodded at Clark and then hugged Pete. "Congratulations, daddy."  
  
Pete moved to greet his family and Clark followed to take some pictures of the Rosses. Left along together, Lex looked at Chloe. "We were both coming from the same city. You could have joined me for the ride." He glanced at the three adults now cooing at the newly wakened child. "You'll excuse me while I check if the papers have been taken care of?"  
  
"I'll take care of them, Lex," Pete protested.  
  
Lex waved Pete's words away. "It's part of employee benefits, Pete. I won't even do anything but check. Other people will handle it if there's more work."  
  
A few minutes of chatting with her old friends and Chloe felt herself craving. "I need my coffee. And I'll have to make do with the bland ones from the dispenser. I'll be back."  
  
Both Pete and Clark offered to go with her, but she could see how attached they already were to the still unnamed Ross. She brushed a kiss on the baby's forehead and commanded the men to stay with Lana. When Chloe rounded the corner of the corridor, large hands grabbed at her waist and pulled her flush against a hard body. She blinked up at a grinning Lex.  
  
He pressed his mouth down on hers, and Chloe parted her lips in full acceptance of his kiss. The kiss was invading and slick, and she relished the intimacy of sharing hot breath with him. Chloe's hands met at his nape and pulled his head lower. She ran her fingers at the back of his head, and he pushed himself closer to her, burying his own fingers in her hair.  
  
Lex maneuvered them so that her back was pressed against the wall. Taking a deep breath, a trying task when he was loath to release her from the kiss, Chloe's hand ran down his shoulder and onto his chest, pushing him gently away. She chuckled at the sight of his bruised lips before realizing that her own probably looked the same.  
  
"I wasn't kidding you know." His low voice rumbled in his chest, a vibration she felt against her breast because of their proximity. "The thought of you, pregnant with my baby, turns me on."  
  
The words sent an electric thrill throughout her body. "Everything does."  
  
"Everything about you," he specified.  
  
Like a bird of prey, his eyes latched on to her moist lips once more and took them in another kiss. Chloe met him with equal fervor, surrendering her control because his statements almost made her do that. She was thankful that his body held her up as it pressed onto her. She would have fallen otherwise. Her bones have melted from the sensation.  
  
A very loud clearing of a throat pierced through the cloud that enveloped them. Chloe peeked over Lex's shoulder and saw the nurse that glared at them in disapproval. Reluctantly, they pull apart but still managed to link their fingers together. When the nurse left, Lex leaned back against the wall and groaned. "We should really tell people so we can stop sneaking around."  
  
"It's only in Smallville, Lex. And in Metropolis."  
  
"Which is where we're always in. We're moving in together, Chloe. Don't you think it would make them feel better to know that we've been seeing each other for almost a year now?"  
  
"I promise." She pulled at his hand so that he'd move closer. She turned to him and whispered, "Besides, sneaking around turns me on."  
  
His lips curl in delight. "Okay. One more day then." Lex looked around for an empty room to take their secret affair to. 


	4. Glimmer and Stain

iv. Glimmer and Stain  
  
2010  
  
"Pete and Lana can't make it," Clark apologized the moment Lex opened the door. "Lana's appointment with her doctor was moved."  
  
"How are they?" Lex inquired as he moved to let Clark enter the house.  
  
"She and the baby are fine. It's just a routine exam that got rescheduled because the doctor had a real emergency elsewhere." The reporter adjusted his glasses and looked around the expansive living room. "I'm surprised that Chloe agreed to get a place so far from the heart of the city. She's always been loved to be where the action was."  
  
"Oh believe me, Clark. We get plenty of action here," Chloe informed Clark with a grin, having come into the living room to hear the last of Clark's words.  
  
Her statement made Clark's cheeks burn. "I really did not need to hear that."  
  
"So how do you like it?" she asked, motioning to the room. After two years living in Lex's penthouse, they both decided that it was time to live in a real house. "You're our first visitor so you'll have to be polite."  
  
"How can I say anything negative, Chloe? You know it's gorgeous. Everything looks the way you wanted it to."  
  
Clark glanced over at Lex, who moved to look out the window. The tense set of his shoulders indicated the secret that he had been hiding from Chloe. With only Clark as confidant, Lex had successfully wrested majority shares of LuthorCorp from his father, displacing from the head of the company and earning him the wrath and eventual threats of Lionel. After about half a dozen foiled attempts to get to Lex and one package addressed to Chloe that contained a single bullet-a delivery he had thankfully opened before she even saw it-Lex had tightened the security around them. It was the main reason that he had pushed the construction of their dream house at the periphery of Metropolis, which would be safer for them both.  
  
"I'd love a drink," Clark said out loud.  
  
"Oh of course. I'll be right back."  
  
The swinging doors leading to the kitchen closed behind her. Lex looked at Clark and waited for him to speak, knowing that he would not send Chloe out of earshot just because he was thirsty. When he spoke, Clark did on the topic that they both never wanted her to know about. "This isn't that far from your father, Lex."  
  
"Can't take her across the country. I wouldn't displace her again just because my father's off in the head," Lex argued.  
  
"He can get to you here," the younger man stressed.  
  
Lex walked away from the window and gazed at the closed door leading to the kitchen. He was aware of that very fact. There was no amount of security that can hold Lionel back if he were really adamant about what he needed done. Still, a part of Lex wanted to believe that his father would not push through with his threats. Was Lionel Luthor really capable of harming his own son or the woman he loved? "If he does," he said quietly, looking at Clark Kent, "you know what you have to do."  
  
Clark stared back at Lex. Of course he knew the drill. Lex had given him the instructions from the time he planned the takeover, which was a year ago. Since then, Lex had reminded him frequently of the order that he must follow. "I trust you, Clark."  
  
For the younger man, it was a responsibility and a burden to know that he would have to sacrifice one for another. To have Lex Luthor trust him with his life was daunting enough. It was even more intimidating to him because it showed just how much faith Lex had in him that Lex trusted him with Chloe's life. "You do know that Chloe won't come easily."  
  
There was a flicker of something remotely like pride flickered in his eyes at that. "Of course she'll put up a fight. She's my girl." They stood in silence, contemplating the possibilities waiting in the future for them. Lex turned towards the kitchen. "I'll see what's keeping Chloe."  
  
When he entered the kitchen, he saw her standing right in front of the window, looking outside with an intent look on her face. She looked at him when he came in. Concerned, he stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "What are you looking at?"  
  
"There's a man across the street watching our house," she said quietly. She felt Lex stiffen behind her and move her away from the window. His jaw locked tight, he looked out the window himself. He visibly relaxed then. "What's going, Lex?"  
  
"Don't worry about him. He's head of security."  
  
Chloe suddenly smiled at him, asking softly, "Why would we need security around here?"  
  
"It's a new village, Chloe. I wanted to make sure everything's safe."  
  
She shook her head, not believing his words. "You picked this place specifically because it's the safest neighborhood we can find, Lex." He turned away from the window, and in one action it appeared to her that he had thrown caution to the wind. Lex stepped away from the window and stood in front of her, looking down at her. She held his gaze, waiting for him to say what he had in mind.  
  
Chloe followed his movements with her eyes, silent. He had something very important to say. He always had that look in his eye when he was holding a silent conversation with himself. She smiled, a small little one of encouragement. And then her lips parted when a moment later, when she blinked, she found him kneeling at her feet, reaching for her hand. "Lex," she started.  
  
He held up his hand for silence. "Let me do this?"  
  
She bit her lip to keep herself from talking. She would not have anything to say, even if he allowed her. Chloe gasped when he drew a black velvet box from his jacket pocket and opened it, holding up a subtly cut diamond resting in light gold.  
  
"You have no idea how long I've been holding on to this." A faint curve of his lips. A deep breath.  
  
She couldn't help it really. "How long?" she asked softly.  
  
"Two years."  
  
"When I moved in to your penthouse?" He nodded. "Why so long?"  
  
"You had a life to live," he told her. And she did. She finished college with honors and landed her dream job in the Planet in the mean time. "The past few months," he said, and Chloe listened quietly, aware that for a while he had been preoccupied, "made me realize that the future is uncertain. You're young, and if I'm springing this on you so early, I apologize. But I was hoping that even though you still have do so much, and have to live your life, you'll live that life with me."  
  
Chloe pulled her hand out of his. She saw the crestfallen look on his face just before she covered her face with her hands. He started to rise, and Chloe peeked at him with a frown. "Where's the question?" she demanded.  
  
"Wh-I thought you-"  
  
"You have to ask the question, Lex! I can't believe you don't know the drill after all those cheesy flicks I've made you watch with me."  
  
He couldn't tell her that he never paid attention to the movies on those nights. All he watched was Chloe, smiling, crying, leaning on him, laying her head on his chest. All he saw was Chloe. "Will you marry me?"  
  
And that was when her face broke into a thousand watt smile, debunking the belief that the diamond's shine was the brightest in the room. "Oh!" She threw her arms around him and sat on his leg, her face now buried in the crook of his neck.  
  
"You're supposed to give me an answer," he whispered into her ear.  
  
Now we're they both just so dense that day. "Yes," she said into his skin, the movement causing him to shiver. "Yes, yes, yes, yes. I can't think of living the rest of my life without you, Lex. So of course I will!"  
  
Chloe watched in fascination as he slipped the ring on her finger. His arms wrapped around her, and they stayed like that for a long time. "Clark is waiting in the living room," he said, not really concerned about his friend. The other man had most likely known what Lex was planning to do. He had seen the ring, and he knew how fatalistic Lex had been feeling for a while now.  
  
He saw the tears that had spilled from her eyes. Lex took a handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiped them away, kissing under her eyes every time he ran the linen over her skin to soothe her. Chloe smiled at him and took the cloth from his hand, now drying his neck where she had earlier cried on.  
  
He pulled them both up to retreat back to the living room. Lex glanced outside the window as they passed, looking at the clear lawn. He stiffened at the unbroken horizon and glanced at Chloe. "Go to the living room," he commanded. She sucked in her breath. It was not everyday that she saw fear on his face. She looked out the window over his shoulder and saw that the suited man outside was now gone.  
  
"Lex-"  
  
"Go!"  
  
"Lex," she repeated.  
  
Lex pushed her away from the window. She glanced back at him. Her gaze widened and her world seemed to be thrust into a slow-moving atmosphere. She screamed a silent scream when his body jerked. He fell through the air, but through that point when she knew something had hit him from behind, his gaze never left hers. The glass behind him shattered, and she had no sense of chronology now. She fell to her knees more because it was an automatic reaction to the sound. Chloe crawled over to him, her palms and knees getting cut from the broken pieces of glass and her blood smeared over the tiles of their new home.  
  
She pulled up his upper body so that she cradled him to her. Chloe's heart constricted in terror when she felt the hot liquid pulsing on her legs. Vaguely, she remembered the handkerchief clutched in one hand. She held it to his back, knowing it would not help.  
  
The doors flew open and it could have been Clark or the shooter but she did not care. Her face was a mere few inches over his. Chloe laid her lips on his mouth and sobbed.  
  
Lex's eyes flickered open. "I won't be able to protect you from my father. You have to run. Clark knows what to do."  
  
"No," she protested. "We have to take you to the hospital."  
  
"Chloe, this place," he gasped, "will be crawling with my father's men in minutes. Let Clark take you. Clark."  
  
The one word sent the young man to their side. Clark did not look at Lex. He had his instructions and he took Chloe by her upper arms, pulling her away from Lex.  
  
"What the hell are you doing?" she cried at Clark. "We have to take Lex!"  
  
"Chloe, I'll come back for him." Clark's heart tore. He would not be able to use his speed to take them both away now, with all the attention and surveillance on the place. He held her firm despite her struggles.  
  
"Take him. Whatever's going on, they won't hurt me."  
  
Lex quietly watched his lover hiss at their best friend. "Chloe, please. My dad won't hesitate to come after you. Clark, go."  
  
It was that Clark now held her like a vise as he pulled her to his car and drove away. Her clothes and skin soaked through with blood, the wet handkerchief clutched in her hand, Chloe said dully, "He's not going to make it."  
  
Clark glanced at her apologetically. "He won't," came his silent agreement.  
  
"Why did you do it, Clark?"  
  
"It was what he wanted."  
  
She had no tears left. They would not come until days later. "Why would Lionel want to kill Lex?"  
  
It was a senseless question now. Clark looked at his friend, who showed no anger or fear or even grief. He saw the red cloth in her hand and a glimmer of something else. "You'll have to get away from Metropolis," he told her, repeating Lex's instructions. "Lionel will go after you next."  
  
"Why? I don't have any connection to him. Not anymore."  
  
"Chloe, from the moment you moved in together, Lex had fixed all his legal documents. You've been named his common-law wife for two years. Everything that Lex had, including properties that he wrested from his father, all fall to you. I know that Lex had taken all the precaution so that his lawyers will liquidate everything and make the money transfers untraceable. Run, Chloe. Start a life somewhere. Forget you ever had one in Kansas." 


	5. Heart on Hold

v. Heart on Hold  
  
Present Day  
  
She would not have guessed from all the interviews that she had read and the quick clips taken of Bruce Wayne shown in CNBC or CNN that he was a stubborn man. After that first meeting, stranded inside Wayne Enterprises, Bruce had taken her home to her apartment. Chloe had thought that that was the end of her brief acquaintance with Mr. Wayne. It was not until he had flooded her with flowers the next day that she realized she was not rid of the dark-haired billionaire.  
  
In truth, the night with Bruce was not an unpleasant experience. She would even go so far as to stay that she enjoyed herself chatting with him, amiably speaking without purpose really. She had always been after answers when she spoke to men of his celebrity. Even with Lex, she always had a goal-to grab his attention, to get him to rest, often to make him hot enough that he'll drop whatever he's doing and ravish her. With Bruce, it was just to while away the hours until they could safely venture out of the building.  
  
He was not an unattractive man. His thick head of hair, a midnight black, reminded her of Clark's. His eyes, when she looked into them and focused, she could pretend were Lex's. They were the same shade of blue and she needed to believe that there were things around her that made her closer to him.  
  
But Chloe had traveled all over the country for six months, searching for places that would make her memories less bitter, moving from town to town, city to city, state to state, so that Lionel would never be able to trace her. In all that time there was one constant in her mind. It was that unwavering feeling that she was not with Lex Luthor. Even in Gotham City, a place where she thought she could possibly stay in because it was as far from Smallville as it could get, and it was large and murky enough that Lionel may not even be able to trace her there, Lex's face was the only image embedded on the backs of her eyelids.  
  
She called him up at his office the moment the deliverymen left. The flowers were gorgeous. They were so bright and beautiful and they smelled like Kansas. And therein lay a huge problem. Chloe wanted to throw them out. Bruce just turned her refuge, a place that she relished because of the darkness and the cold, and turned it into Mrs. Kent's garden.  
  
Mr. Wayne's time, apparently, was too precious to take personal calls. Chloe rolled her eyes at the grating sound of the woman's voice. She left a brief message. She was not a journalist if she did not know how to make use of brevity as a tool of pressure.  
  
Chloe proceeded to her small kitchen to make herself some coffee. She counted the minutes of preparation, a senseless habit that she had begun her second week away from Metropolis. Having an empty life, she had resorted to filling her blank moments with anything at all. She had to be occupied so that she will not keep thinking about Lex.  
  
As always, she failed in that simple task. Chloe closed her eyes and held a silent conversation with him in her brain.  
  
'I'm running out of coffee. I'll have to run out and get some this afternoon.'  
  
'What on earth are you trying to pull, Ms Sullivan?'  
  
'What a surprise. How are you?'  
  
'You're throwing away an opportunity. The man is obviously attracted to you.'  
  
'Who wouldn't be? I got you all wrapped up my little finger, didn't I?'  
  
'How characteristic of you to be missing my point here.'  
  
'God, Lex, why are you on his side? Aren't you even jealous?'  
  
'I would have been if I weren't already dead.'  
  
Chloe's eyes shot open at the words and she saw that her coffee was ready. She poured the steaming liquid into a mug and settled down on the chair, irritated. "You always have to ruin it," she muttered to no one in particular. "I don't need to be reminded all the time, you know. I'm living the hell of it, am I not?"  
  
She leaned her head back and breathed deeply. She wondered if she would be doing better if this had happened to Lex and she was able to stay in Metropolis or return to Smallville. What difference would it have made to her if she had her friends and her father to lean on? 'You just had to name me your common-law wife and mess it all up.'  
  
'You never get flattered, do you? Other women would have been really happy.'  
  
'I learned it during a very grueling moment so you'll have to forgive me. And what the hell is your voice doing in my brain. You just said you were dead so stop answering me.'  
  
'I'd probably stop when you've stopped calling to me every time.'  
  
'I know I'm just making you up. I'm going to make it stop.'  
  
'Inform me when you've succeeded in forgetting about me.'  
  
'I will.'  
  
Chloe sipped on her coffee, satisfied that she had resolved the issue until she realized the implication of what she had decided on.  
  
'Dammit.'  
  
The ringing of the phone jarred her out of the reverie. She rose and took the cordless phone from the living room before returning to her coffee. "Finally settled business enough to call me back, huh?"  
  
"I was settling a simple chemical dispute. My secretary should have informed me of your call sooner."  
  
"Please don't go out of your way for me," she replied with a certain bite, catching herself before she unloaded the sarcasm that her imaginary Lex voice had forced on her. God, she was pathetic to be riled by a memory.  
  
"You are as dangerous on the phone as you were in your message. You had my secretary quaking on her stilettos thinking she had displeased a personal friend."  
  
"I was only giving her all the information that I wanted relayed, since I am not allowed to speak to you."  
  
"'Can't even make it to the phone? Thank you for the flowers but I am not going out with you.' She was so afraid she had something to do with that decision."  
  
Chloe rolled her eyes. "Tell her she does not rate that high on the list of people whose thoughts I frequently care about."  
  
"Why won't you go out with me?" he asked, just as directly. The way with this woman was to be straight to the point. He gathered that early on.  
  
She rewarded him with an answer that was just as direct, one that after which he wished that she had cushioned it more. "Suffice it to say, Mr Wayne, that after the date when you kiss me on my doorstep, and I respond passionately, it's actually not you I will be kissing."  
  
It was a bruise to the ego, but he admired her honesty. "Who will you be kissing then?"  
  
"I'm in Gotham for many reasons, Mr Wayne, one of which is so I will not have to talk about it."  
  
There was a pause at his end of the line. "So talk to me about something else then."  
  
"Are you sure the economy of Gotham City will not stagger if you spend more minutes on the phone with me?"  
  
"It didn't occur to me last night because I was enraptured with your face." She blushed at the compliment. "But you're a bitch."  
  
He said it so fondly that she hadn't had the heart to take offense. She softened her voice. "What do you want to talk about?"  
  
"What did your family say about you moving away from Kansas?"  
  
Chloe took a deep breath, hoping she could make up an answer that would keep her from lying but would reveal nothing that may be used against her. "My father was against it at first but it was the best thing to do."  
  
"And your mom?"  
  
"I lost her when I was five."  
  
"I'm sorry," came his deep voice.  
  
"So was I. But not anymore. She walked out and never even wanted custody or visitation."  
  
It was answer that revealed so much about her, and he was secretly glad that she felt comfortable enough with him to say that. "You're not asking about my parents."  
  
"I wouldn't want to pry," she snarked.  
  
"Touché."  
  
"No," she replied, smiling now. "You're a famous man. I know enough to realize that I shouldn't bring it up."  
  
"So this is not fair. You know so much about me and I know too little about you. You'll have to let me take you to dinner."  
  
She was impressed that he would still invite her despite the answer that she had already given him. Bruce Wayne, aside from being stubborn, was a masochist. "You know how I take my coffee, that I lived in Kansas all my life, how I feel about Gotham's interminable darkness and incessant snow. That's more than a what a lot of people know about me."  
  
"That's true," his voice rumbled again. "I also know that you believe you will be thinking of someone else when I kiss you. But you obviously don't really know me if you think that will be the case. You'll have to kiss me and find out for yourself."  
  
"You must have a very huge ego that it's all right for you to push it into the path of destruction."  
  
"You haven't experienced my kiss," he answered back.  
  
'Are you happy now, Lex?'  
  
And he was silent. 


	6. When She Fell in Love

vi. When She Fell In Love  
  
She sat in a quaint little café that Bruce had taken her to once, the first time they went for a walk through the park. It had the first day when the sun shone in Gotham after the endless days of storm. Chloe had enjoyed that afternoon. It was still very cold and the streets were slippery because of the melting ice. Bruce called her at home and told her that the snow had stopped.  
  
Chloe had peeked out her window and answered him, "Is it night?" Her clock said that it was one in the afternoon, but it seemed too dark. If the snow had stopped, then surely it should be bright by then.  
  
"No, Chloe. The sun is shining."  
  
"Then maybe someone put a roof over my street because there is no way that's sunshine."  
  
"The sun shines differently in Gotham City, Chloe. Believe me, that gray is actually the brightest you will find in here."  
  
"Depressing," she commented offhandedly, forgetting rather conveniently that it was the very reason she settled here.  
  
"You'll find it a lot more cheerful if we walked outside."  
  
She grinned at that. "My brain was suddenly bombarded by an image of being walked by a leash. Only dogs are schedules to be walked through the streets, Mr Wayne."  
  
"Three dates, Chloe. Surely you can find some wedge or space in your undoubtedly full memory to remember that we called each other by our first names the first night we met."  
  
Her answer was, "I think I'm not a dog. A bitch, maybe, but not a dog."  
  
"My brain is bombarded by an image of you on a leash too, but in an entirely different context," he parried back.  
  
'Well thank you for being considerate enough to send me a judo master too. You really leave nothing to chance, do you, Lex?'  
  
Since his silence the morning that Bruce called, Lex's voice in her head had never occurred again. Chloe felt largely deserted by his absence.  
  
"Besides," Bruce said, "we will be walking in the park."  
  
That made her pause. "Gotham City has a park?" she exclaimed in disbelief.  
  
"Gotham is not the sixth hell. Of course it has a park."  
  
"And it has a plaque somewhere that has your name on it," she answered.  
  
"It does not. Contrary to popular belief, I did not donate all things civilized in this great, albeit gloomy, city." And because he could never lie to her, he elaborated, "It's my father's name on that plaque."  
  
His words made her smile. "All right. I'll meet you in the lobby."  
  
"Great. Alfred's parked in front of your building. He'll take you here."  
  
Chloe had laughed and went to that walk in the park with him, even capped it with dinner several hours later. And Chloe had met him for lunch the week after, for dinner at his house the night after that. In fact, they had met so many times by now that she had lost track of every date.  
  
Now, here in this café where they took their meal after their walk that day that Gotham ironically had termed the beginning of spring, Chloe looked over the menu. She needed to crave something, just to add spice in her life. What little light there was in the room was blocked by a looming shadow in front of her. She looked up to see what the large object was.  
  
Before she could speak or greet him, Bruce Wayne asked her, "What do you do for a living?" He sat in front of her, and she was puzzled.  
  
"I told you, didn't I?" she said softly. "I'm not working at the moment. I've taken time off my graduate studies."  
  
"What school?"  
  
The abrupt manner with which he asked her made her stiffen. With no small amount of hostility, she answered, "You wouldn't know it. I was studying abroad."  
  
"How do you support yourself?"  
  
"Have you seen my apartment?" she answered back.  
  
"Mouse hole that it was," Bruce said, "Gotham property prices has soared so much that it would still be expensive."  
  
Her eyes narrowed at him. "I have my savings. What's with the third degree?"  
  
"So you're rich?" It was odd. His barrage of questions was thrown at her in the same calm and deep voice that he used with everything else. "Or is the Daily Planet sending you your salary while you're investigating me?"  
  
She remembered another woman caught in the very same situation with Lex. When he had told her about that instance in his past, she had defended his actions even to himself. But now, trapped in the same horror, Chloe blanched and pushed her chair back. She stiffly took her purse and walked out of the café.  
  
Before she reached the door, he called back to her, "Explain it to me, Chloe."  
  
Without looking back at him, she replied coldly, "You're the great researcher. Research."  
  
He watched her retreating back and stared intently at the table in front of him. He only wanted to know something about her so that he could plan a surprise. It had been six months since they met. Bruce knew, from all the women who had passed in his life, that women enjoyed celebrating milestones. He had thought that this was the best way he could show her how much his feelings for her had altered. To his shock, he found out that the woman who was coming to mean so much to him was part of the biggest news media in the country.  
  
Bruce could call the Daily Planet and confirm if she had in fact been sent on assignment after him. He would not need to inform them of who he was. All he had to do was pretend to be a relative and see if she was out on assignment. He took his phone from his pocket and dialed the number.  
  
It was still ringing when he changed his mind. He slipped it back into his coat and stood up. Bruce was set to run when he found her, bright blonde hair in stark contrast to the gray city. She was sitting in the bench just a few buildings away. He walked over to her slowly.  
  
"You know nothing about me," her emotionless voice reached him.  
  
He sat down beside her. "I'm sorry. I'm trying to reach you, Chloe. I feel that I just can't get past something you're putting up between us." He looked down at her, but she did not meet his gaze. Chloe stared at the cemented street in front of her. Tentatively, he reached for her hand, relieved when she did not snatch it back. "Whatever it is that sent you here." He saw the flicker in her eyes when he said that. "Or whoever it is. I'll help you get over. But what we have is too special to ignore."  
  
She turned her head now to meet his eyes, her own swimming. "I'll never get over him because I don't want to. So don't look into my past because you'll find things that you won't like."  
  
"Okay," he murmured easily, too easily.  
  
"And I will never love you like I loved him."  
  
A space of two breaths. "Okay."  
  
"And he's dead but you'll never take his place."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"You have to be crazy to be agreeing to this."  
  
"Sure," he answered softly.  
  
Bruce leaned his head close to hers. His large hand reached to cup her pale cheek. His thumb brushed away one of her tears. He placed his lips tenderly over hers.  
  
Chloe closed her eyes and surrendered herself to the kiss, her last thought for the moment was that Lex used to hold the back of her neck when they kissed, and that his lips were so much softer. She warned him enough. It was no longer her fault. Bruce will kiss her again, maybe tomorrow, maybe later. But she will still be kissing another man. 


	7. By His Own Design

vii. By His Own Design  
  
The clatter of metal against the stone floor was thinly muted by thin carpeting. The man sprawled heavily on the floor, facedown, hissed at the pain that throbbed through his entire body. He grasped at a wooden chair nearby and started to pull himself up, only to send the chair toppling back and going down with it. He pushed himself up by his lower arms and tried to catch his breath. He glared at the chair and violently pushed it even further.  
  
Hurried footsteps growing louder signaled another person's approach. Only one person was both concerned and unconcerned enough to barge into his sanctuary.  
  
"I don't need help," he informed the new arrival.  
  
He was ignored, the way his frustration had been ignored the past year. Strong hands helped him up and led him to the abominable chair where he had been confined to for months of his life.  
  
"Did they find her?"  
  
Clark looked down at his friend. Lex was pale and sweaty, but he could see the determination clear in his eyes. "No. The last lead led us to a dead end. She was seen there eight months ago but never since then."  
  
"And my father?"  
  
"As far as we know, Lionel has not even found the dead end we've encountered, Lex. We're far more advanced than he is in the search." Clark searched Lex's countenance for any reaction to the news, perhaps some happiness at the thought. "You designed the perfect escape for her, Lex. We followed every detail."  
  
"So intricate even you can't find her, Clark."  
  
The younger man took the seat in front of his friend. "She wasn't in Europe," he confided in Lex.  
  
"She wouldn't have left the country," Lex told him.  
  
"You sound sure of that. I gave her the passport you provided."  
  
Lex raised his eyes to meet his. "I know Chloe, Clark. She would have stayed in the country." He ran a frustrated hand over his face. And then he unexpectedly hit his chair with his fist. "I know her better than any of you. I know I can find her!"  
  
"We're not going to stop looking, Lex," Clark assured his friend.  
  
Lex shook his head. "I have to get out of this damn contraption. I know I'll find her if I can move the fuck around!" Again, he gripped the metal sides and pulled himself up, his arms trembling from the tense effort.  
  
"The doctor told you not to force it," Clark said sharply.  
  
"I know better my body's capability, Clark," Lex bit out. Carefully, he laid one foot on the floor and laid his weight on it. Lex grimaced with the effort. Droplets of sweat pooled on his neck, and the rivulets soaked the front and back of his shirt. Damn his father for making sure his hitmen would aim for his vitals. Just a millimeter to the left and they would have shattered his spine, instead of merely jarring his nerves enough to paralyze his lower body for all these months.  
  
He had been sure that that afternoon was the day he died. Oddly enough, for all his illusions of grandeur, it was not the loss of his chance to achieve greatness that bothered him at that precise moment when he hovered between the darkness and the light. It had been that tear staining her cheek. It was with regret that he realized that he no longer had command of his limbs, and he could not wipe it away.  
  
It was her eyes that were his light, which guided him back from the agonizing purgatory that he was in. Lex fought through a haze that felt like the most turbulent waters, and kicked at the force that dragged him under.  
  
He had woken to an even more painful hell that consisted only of a white room and Clark Kent passing by every so often.  
  
He called for her, at night, voicelessly for the tubes that choked him. The first night that he was fully conscious, and the doctor slid the plastic out from his throat, Lex threw up on himself and knew that he had brought so low by the man who spawned him. Clark stood beside him, holding his eyeglasses in his hands, an unspeaking vanguard until the doctor left them.  
  
He fought to form her name, but raspy, dry and unused as his vocals were, Lex was only about to cough out several "Ch's", which Clark understood well. The dark-haired man closed his eyes and shook his head, and Lex knew right then that the moment he closed his eyes, he would will them never to open again. What for was the struggle to the surface if Lionel had-  
  
"When Toby told me that you were not going to survive, I sent her away, just like we talked about."  
  
Lex released a shuddering breath then. Tomorrow, tomorrow he would take his car and find her. She could not have gone too far.  
  
"Lex, you should know. You've been in and out of consciousness for two months."  
  
He would have to drive farther then. It was not a big deal. Lex would follow her to the ends of earth and take her home.  
  
"Lex, you've most likely lost the use of your limbs."  
  
He grabbed Clark's shirt and pulled him down, shock clear on his features.  
  
"Apparently not," the younger man murmured.  
  
And it was then that he realized that Clark had dropped his glasses on his lap. And he never felt the movement.  
  
Now almost a year of pushing himself to the limits. Lex placed his other foot in front of the other and swallowed thickly. The shooting pain from every inch of his foot hit his hips and spine. He closed his eyes tightly and knew only pain. He took calming breaths and struggled to find a semblance of peace. At the back of his lids, he conjured an image of Chloe, his fiancé now, he thought fondly, waiting at the other end of the room. Before he knew it, Clark's voice interrupted the melody he replayed in his brain.  
  
"That's enough, Lex," Clark said sharply.  
  
He opened his eyes and saw himself facing the wall. He looked back at Clark, leaning forward in his chair, astounded by his accomplishment. Lex faced the wall again, only a foot away from him. And it was then that he looked down at his legs, knees knocking against each other from the exertion. He swayed on his feet, but before Clark rose to rescue him from another spill, Lex reached out and laid his palm on the wall. Carefully, he leaned his back on it, feeling the cold against his spine.  
  
He would find her now. He will roam the continent and find her, to live the life that Lionel Luthor had shattered the way he did the glass windows of their new house.  
  
And together they will bring the devil to his knees. 


	8. And Again

viii. And Again  
  
She hated this infernal snow, but that had been established since her arrival in Gotham. Chloe needed to get back into journalism or some other type of writing because she was lacking so much practice that she was sinking into redundancy. She pushed away from the window lest she become so affected by the stark whiteness that she press her nose against the glass.  
  
Bruce was late, and she was itching to go into the spare room. Bruce had spent yesterday there "fixing things." Tonight, he was supposed to come over so he could show her when they were together. Chloe picked up the phone and tried to remember Bruce's schedule for the day. He was supposed to have a brief meeting with the board before heading home. She tossed the cordless handset to her right hand and expertly caught it, dialing the number for the eerie mansion.  
  
"Alfred! Hey. How's your leg?" She paused in consideration, nodding at the old man's symptoms. "It's the weather. We should really talk to Bruce about getting you a Caribbean cruise or a tropical vacation." Chloe listened to the polite British voice on the other end of the line. "I know, Alfred. I know Master Wayne can't live without you. It's just going to be for three weeks tops. Besides, he has me in the meantime," she said teasingly. The old man turned down her offers to speak with Bruce about that vacation. He did inform her that Bruce was likely delayed because of an announcement made earlier today. "What announcement, Alfred?"  
  
Hearing the news, Chloe thanked the butler and switched on the television, automatically surfing for CNBC, CNN and finally FOX News. There was nothing like 24 hour cable news.  
  
As Alfred had predicted, there Bruce was, surrounded by black microphones waving before his face. She curiously watched his face for any emotions he was trying to hide. Bruce was good though. He was definitely better than Lex in hiding what he really thought, although that was probably because Lex could never lie to her and Bruce had no connection to the reporters gathered around him now.  
  
"What can you say about Anysse Blenke's engagement?"  
  
Anysse Blenke was, Chloe was well aware, the supermodel from Wales who was the longest relationship that Bruce Wayne had ever had since he came into the public eye. And seeing as he became property of Gotham City since fourteen, Anysse Blenke had been Bruce Wayne's longest girlfriend. Chloe was about to beat her in a month's time though. She listened closely to Bruce's answer, not understanding why she was suddenly so nervous.  
  
"I wish her all the happiness with Strider," he said. She adored his deep voice. It can make her want to go on listening to him forever or go to sleep knowing that he was protecting her. "Anysse is a beautiful woman, inside and out. He is very fortunate to have her."  
  
"Mr Wayne, you parted in hostile terms?"  
  
"No. We did not," was his brief answer.  
  
"How did you part, Mr Wayne?"  
  
With a slight grin, Bruce tried to deflect the question. "Is no one going to ask about the new products that Wayne Enterprises will be releasing for the year? That was the purpose of this board meeting," he reminded them.  
  
"Forgive us for being curious, Mr Wayne. You're a public figure. You must understand that," one of the reporters told him.  
  
"Rita, nice to see you," Bruce greeted courteously. The woman was probably on the 'Bruce Wayne' beat for a long time, Chloe thought, for Bruce to know her by name. "My only opinion on this is that I hope Anysse and her future husband will be very happy."  
  
"Bruce, would you care to comment about some rumors that you just recently flew in from Paris after a failed attempt to woo her back?"  
  
Chloe laughed out loud, remembering yesterday's disastrous attempt at making a sponge cake in her kitchen.  
  
"I doubt that the woman that I am seeing now will be pleased by the way this interview is going."  
  
It was Rita who latched on to that. "So you are in a relationship at the moment? Is it serious, Mr Wayne?"  
  
Again, that small smirk that he did so well. And then Chloe shook her head. Bruce was smiling. It was another man who delighted her with his smirks. It was an expression that Bruce was foreign to. "I doubt that she would appreciate finding out that I intend to marry her by watching the news."  
  
Chloe was very proud of his quick and witty reply. That answer seemed to distinctly lessen the number of questions since the reporters fell back and allowed Bruce to pass through. Before he was able to get into the back of his limousine, one of the reporters asked, "When are you showing her to the public, Bruce? You can't hide her forever."  
  
"We've been out in public many times, Bobby," he replied. "It's not my fault that you people never know where to look."  
  
"I've been covering you for twenty years, Bruce." Bruce turned to look at a woman in her forties smiling at him. "I've never seen you look so at ease. She must be a nice young lady."  
  
Bruce nodded his thanks at the Sentinel's Mrs Brent. The press scrambled to different directions when Bruce closed the vehicle door. Chloe turned placed the television on mute and chuckled at Bruce's amazing parries. He was learning from her.  
  
Chloe rose to go to the bathroom. She dropped the remote control on the couch. A few minutes later, she headed back and plopped down on the couch. She turned back to the television and read the caption, and her heart stopped.  
  
She frantically felt around for the remote control and turned the volume on again.  
  
"Just a few kilometers away from the Wayne building," the woman was reporting, "Bruce Wayne's limousine was shot at several times. Paramedics are heading this way, as we can all see." The camera panned from the reporter to the very familiar black stretch car now haphazardly stopped in the middle of the street. "Witnesses talking to the police right now are saying that the gunshots were heard as coming from Crime Alley. If you would remember, this is the same alley where the Waynes were-"  
  
"No," she whispered. "Not again."  
  
Chloe turned off the television and ran to get her coat. She made the mistake of letting Clark lead her away the first time, never being able to be with Lex when she should have been holding her hand.  
  
She was not going to lose anyone ever again.  
  
The ride to the hospital was one of the longest in her life. Even in that drive out of Metropolis, she had not felt as tense as she was feeling at that moment. Back then, she had been stunned by what had happened, never fully comprehending or accepting yet that she had lost the love of her life. This time, Chloe felt every second that ticked at the back of the cab.  
  
She ran into the hospital and stopped in the lobby, trying to form the words in front of the information desk. Chloe's entire body was trembling with fear. "The-the accident-Wayne-"  
  
Around her, more journalists milled around, pushing at each other in the hospital lobby. She tried to make her way to the front desk despite the crush.  
  
And then he heard his voice. "Chloe!"  
  
She turned around slowly, half-afraid that this was a hallucination, the way she deceived herself right after losing Lex. But when she faced the throng of people, she could see the familiar head above all of them. Her lower lip was trembling, so she caught it between her teeth. "Bruce!" she screamed, heedless of the media surrounding her.  
  
She idly wondered what force actually makes a crowd part at times like this. She had no name for it, but she was thankful for its existence. The path between them clear, she ran towards him and embraced him. "I thought- God, Bruce, when I saw it-" She tightened her arms around him, and he hugged her back just as warmly. "I can't lose another-"  
  
"It's okay, Chloe. The limo was bulletproof, remember?" he reminded her softly. "We brought in the bystanders that were hurt."  
  
Her mind must have blanked out upon watching the report. "I just kept thinking," she rambled on, "that if you got killed, then you wouldn't know. I love you, Bruce. And I won't even compare it anymore. I don't love you less than I did him. It's just. It's different. And last week," she sobbed, "when you asked me if I can give you a space in a heart already occupied by another man, I said no. And I was lying," she confessed. "Because I found another place for you, and you won't have to share with him, because I found a place that's entirely yours."  
  
"Chloe, you're unsettled," he said slowly, even though he had been dreaming of this moment for a long time.  
  
She shook her head. "He taught me to take a chance with love. We did everything unconventionally. And now he's gone, and he'll want me to be with a great guy if he's not around anymore."  
  
"Chloe, I want you to go home," he told her quietly. "I want you to be calm when you say this to me, because I can't trust it if your adrenaline is talking. You were afraid you were going to lose me," he explained. "You're not. Make the decision knowing that you're not."  
  
Reluctantly, she left the hospital with all eyes trained on her. She felt the warmth of the journalists' interest. When one moved to follow her, another kept him back. She turned around to smile thankfully. It was Mona Brent, she recognized. Chloe tied her coat closed.  
  
She was about to hail a cab when a warm hand rested on the small of her back. "I'll take you home. I don't fully trust Gotham taxis."  
  
Chloe leaned against him, snuggling into his warmth. "Your limo is with the police."  
  
A conservative Cadillac parked in front of them. Bruce opened the door and helped her in, then got in beside her. She held his hand during the ride, not letting go even they stopped in front of her apartment. Chloe's fingers entwined in his, Bruce led her to the steps. He took the key from her other hand and pushed the door open.  
  
A dark figure rose and Bruce pushed her behind him. Chloe flipped the light on to see Clark Kent. She placed a comforting hand on Bruce's arm, and he stepped back but remained beside her. He took her hand in his.  
  
"Have I been found?" she said. "I don't want to go back there, Clark."  
  
"We'll stay here if you want."  
  
Chloe turned to the direction of the voice, and saw the other figure come out from the kitchen. She sucked in a shuddering breath, and the periphery of her vision turned black, focusing only on that one person now standing in front of her, thinner, paler, looking so much older than he should. Chloe pulled her hand out of Bruce's. Her mouth moved to speak, but no sound came out. Her throat worked and she just stared at him, drinking in the sight, solid and not her imagination now. "God," she choked out. "Oh my God, Lex!"  
  
And then she was flying across the room, throwing her arms around him. Lex grunted at the force of her body slammed onto his still weak legs, but he held firm. He wrapped his arms around the soft, pliant body pressed against his. He closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of her hair. He felt the wetness of her tears as she cried into the crook of his neck.  
  
Bruce watched, his jaw locked tight, as she burrowed deeper into the man's embrace. He knew the man, but never personally. She was in his arms, much in the way that she was in his own just a half hour ago. While she spoke rapidly earlier, telling him everything she never got to say, she was wrapped in another man's arms now just crying, seeking to be part of Luthor almost.  
  
He waited at the doorstep, his attention still locked on the couple who stood so close to each other. Her face was no longer buried in his neck, but they were pressed as tightly as before. Chloe was looking up at Lex, tears still silent. The bald man used his palm to brush her wet cheeks, and through her tears, she smiled. Bruce watched in a mixture of fascination and horror and Chloe reached inside her blouse and produced a necklace where a ring hung from. Two pairs of hands fumbled at the clasp. They released the ring from the chain and together, they slid it back on her ring finger. Bruce had not known that Chloe wore an engagement ring around her neck all the time that they were together.  
  
She was in heaven now. The new roughness on his palm as he brushed her tears away, this stronger need she saw in his eyes, the warmth of his fingers as he helped her put on the ring that he gave her the last time they were together.  
  
A shift in the lighting indicated a block was removed and it's shadow diminished, she turned around to look at what had been standing in the way of the hallway light. When she turned around, the door stood open and the way empty.  
  
She turned back to Lex, still unable to believe that he was standing in front of her. She reached up to touch his face, and he was flesh and blood. He turned his head to kiss her palm. "I never forgot you," she said. "Not even when I fell in love with another man."  
  
The light in his eyes grew dimmer. He closed his eyes. "Should I have stayed away?"  
  
"Do you blame me?"  
  
And having the same answer to both questions, they stood pressed close together, their foreheads resting against each other's. 


	9. He Stands Alone

ix. He Stands Alone  
  
He stood behind the desk, his hands clasped behind him, looking out of the glass windows and watching the snow fall down and blanket his city. This was how he was born to be.  
  
Bruce Wayne, parentless at fourteen, the world watching him from afar, now watched over the desolate city knowing that the frost had only just begun. The clouds that hung long were within reach, so high up was he.  
  
The crackle of the intercom would have gone unnoticed then, if not for the words, "You have a visitor, Mr Wayne." After that eventful night, he could only hazard a guess as to who would dare come to him. He did not turn around. He knew that what he loved most about her, that contrast she presented with her presence in his cold and gray life, was what was going to grip at his heart now.  
  
"It was so beautiful, Bruce," her soft words reached his ears. He struggled for control, knowing that the moment he laid eyes on her he might never agree to let go. To surrender the fight of a losing battle was not cowardice. It was self-preservation, and it was something he desperately needed now. "Thank you for making it so special." He heard her footsteps coming closer, to stop right in front of his desk. A muted sound of an object placed on the wood.  
  
Chloe's eyes brimmed with tears as she gazed on the tense set of his back under the suit. Her hands could release that tight draw of his shoulders. She would run her palms under his shirt and his flesh and muscles would yield to the touch of her skin. She took a deep breath and waited for acknowledgment.  
  
He did not give it, and she could not demand it from him. He was never once at fault. What Bruce Wayne had done and undergone, if they had been for another woman, would have been more than enough to warrant a lifetime's loyalty. Perhaps the problem was with her. She wondered what would have happened if Lex had not been waiting in the apartment earlier, and it was Bruce who led her to the waiting room that he had been fixing for a while.  
  
Earlier, concerned that they had been tired, Chloe opened the door to the guest room to show Clark where he could rest, completely forgetting about the surprise that Bruce had been setting up in there. The moment the door swung open, soft music and dim lights came on. The burst of floral fragrance hit her before the colorful sight of the flowers filling every inch of space.  
  
Her eyes settled down on the bed covered completely by rose petals that were pink and red, white and yellow all blending together to create a delightful version of a flower rainbow. There in the middle was the open box, and inside rested a diamond set at the center of smaller ones, displayed on a gold band.  
  
"Lex-"  
  
Lex, who had been standing behind her, wrapped his arms around her. "His is more romantic than mine was," he replied soothingly, with words that would have been inappropriate had it not been his voice that she needed then.  
  
Now the black box sat on Bruce's desk, a figurative block that stood between them. She wished that he would turn around so she could look into his eyes and know if he was angry, or sad, or even if he now despised her. "I guess I'm the only woman who can say that the two proposals of her life were on the happiest and most painful days." She had lost Lex once. Now, she will lose Bruce.  
  
"On the contrary," he said, the sound of his voice relieving her before he continued, "I can probably make today more painful for you." And it was then that he turned around and Chloe sought to meet his eyes. Bruce reached for the box and approached her. He stopped in front of her and held it on his palm, presenting it to her again. "Keep it."  
  
She shook her head sadly and touched the simple engagement ring that had been longer in her possession, and closer to her heart not only for that reason. "I already have one."  
  
He tipped her chin and blue met green. "It's not for now, Chloe. But keep it for the time when you will need me, when you lose him."  
  
There was no threat to his voice, and she did not take the words with any malice. "I don't intend to lose him again," she replied softly.  
  
"But if you-"  
  
"Please, Bruce," she interrupted, with real pleading, "don't."  
  
Reluctantly, he nodded his assent. For the time being, he will let her believe that she will live happily ever after. He was Bruce Wayne though, and there was no such thing. "I'll watch over you, Chloe. Maybe I'll even watch over him."  
  
"We're going home, Bruce, to face our demons, to get back to where the sun shines all year. Gotham is wonderful, but I miss Kansas."  
  
He nodded, pushing aside the weakening thought that Lex Luthor, who had done nothing to merit this devotion as far as he could see, had the right to take her away in one of his luxury vehicles. Lex Luthor, who had lost her once, and was not strong enough to keep her, would get the prize and he, Bruce Wayne, who could protect her and had the presence of mind to bulletproof his car so that he would not leave her to the mercy of the city, was ultimately losing her. "And I'll be here."  
  
She smiled sadly at him, and stood on the tips of her toes to kiss his cheek. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed tightly, knowing that this was the last time he would hold her. He breathed in deep and embedded the memory of her fragrance. When the door closed behind her, he sat heavily in a leather chair and closed his eyes tightly when the noise of a helicopter chopping away at the air above the building faintly reached his ears.  
  
In the cabin, Chloe sobbed silently into Lex's shoulder as they lifted up from the Wayne building. And then she finally dried her tears and looked into the eyes of the man she was spending the rest of her life with and no matter how much she ached for Bruce, she loved herself too much to stay behind.  
  
Epilogue  
  
In the dark entertainment room, Bruce Wayne relaxed on the couch, remote control in hand, idly looking for a channel. He caught some clips of a national news story that he been following for some time.  
  
"The Metropolis community is thankful to the dark vigilante from Gotham City who apprehended Lionel Luthor before the erstwhile billionaire absconded from the country. Everyone is talking about how the Batman, as the media had fittingly labeled him, held down the helicopter that was heading to South America."  
  
He wondered why they were showing old clips. After a few more minutes watching the clips, he realized that it probably was because the trial was almost over. He turned to another channel in search of more answers.  
  
"This just in. Lionel Luthor has been found guilty of all charges, including tax evasion, bribery, and the attempted murder of his son Alexander. We're trying to get a reaction here from anyone exiting the courtroom."  
  
Bruce smiled thinly in satisfaction. Lex and Chloe had finally, after interminable years, been relieved of the shadow cast by Lionel. He watched closely, still eager after so long to catch a glimpse of her. She was still as beautiful, if not more so, he knew. He had seen pictures of her in some magazines and newspapers. It was hard to miss them when he read the paper everyday. It was harder when he purposely looked for her in sections where he was sure to find her.  
  
Lex fended off the reporters as he hurried to the black car waiting for him at the front of the courthouse. Bruce nodded when he saw the make and model of the vehicle, glad that it appeared to be sturdy, with all the safety features he himself had come to value, and even appeared bulletproof.  
  
"We have our reporter outside the Luthor mansion in Smallville, Kansas where news of the results of the trial has only arrived. Mia?"  
  
Bruce snapped to attention, finally figuring out that Lex had left his family at home and away from the proceedings as much as possible. He tensed at the intrusion of privacy that the cameras and lights must present. The screen swiftly shifted and showed Chloe, in a light summer dress, walking beside another woman who pushed a tram. She never ceased to take his breath away. He watched the change of her expression when she frowned at the sight of the media in her property.  
  
Chloe reached inside the tram and picked up the small infant, bundling it up warmly, and started in another direction after curtly telling the nanny to follow them to the house. Bruce watched her short skirt swing around her thighs as she tried to keep her pace up. He sat up, concerned that she could fall and hurt herself and the baby. The reporter was following them briskly, asking her about her reaction to the decision that would effectively incarcerate her daughter's grandfather for life.  
  
His jaw set and a nerve in his temple ticking, Bruce picked up the phone and called the station. "Give the family their privacy," he demanded. "Well then employ more forceful methods to discipline your reporters. I'm calling as a concerned citizen. She's trying to avoid you and she has a baby with her. Think about it. It could have been your kid," he said in a gravelly voice, "or for that matter, mine."  
  
end 


	10. Sun for Ice

AN: This story is the sequel of GOTHAM: For One Kiss, created especially for those who fell in love with the Bruce Wayne portrayed in that earlier story.  
  
GOTHAM DEUX  
  
i. Sun for Ice  
  
Sleek lines of clothes that encased a body ready to fall, perfect pearls that lined her neck and adorned her ears, a thin veil that separated her from the rest of the world, Chloe Luthor stepped forward and brought her immaculate linen handkerchief to her eyes, dabbing carefully at any stray tear that revealed weakness. The Smallville sun shone down, mocking her at the amount of brightness that it showered on a day such as this one. She reached out her hand and laid it on the cold, smooth surface of the titanium.  
  
Chloe took a deep breath, shuddering. It was so warm when inside her blood was ice. She looked neither to her left or to her right, focused only on the blue box in front of her. "Raise it."  
  
There was a murmur of disapproval behind her, but she had never conformed to what others whispered. She did not need to limit herself to what other people believed. Chloe repeated, "Raise the glass."  
  
One of the attendants stepped forward and removed the offending barrier. At the movement, Chloe stepped closer and looked down, running her eyes lovingly at the still figure lying there. She removed the glove from her hand and laid it on his cheek, stroking warmth back to the flaccid skin. "Honey," she murmured, "will you wake up? It's almost time and if you will, you have to do it now."  
  
His eyelashes did not flicker. His chest did not rise. Chloe closed her eyes and waited to hear his voice. When there was no response, she nodded and looked back, memorized his face as he slept. She leaned over the coffin and stayed still, waiting to feel his breath against her cheek. None came. Finally, she pressed her lips to his forehead. She kissed both of his cheeks. She laid her lips on his.  
  
"Bye Lex," she whispered, her entire face burning with the effort not to burst with her emotion. The weak she despised. She would never belong with the weak.  
  
She stepped back two steps and watched as the attendant replaced the glass on the coffin. She did not take her eyes away from his face as he was once more encased. Chloe Luthor stiffened her back when the blue titanium coffin was carefully raised and slid into the Luthor family vault reserved for him.  
  
Other wives would be crying hysterically, on their knees beating the ground or cursing the heavens with raised fists. Some wives would have fainted long before now. Chloe was not one of the common wives. Lex was too much a part of her. Instead she watched and waited, never losing her reserve, standing apart from the others. She was part of two and now she was only one.  
  
The vault was sealed, and still she stood alone. The funeral party, she could hear, was slowly breaking up. It was done. They had seen Lex Luthor's body laid to its final rest. Chloe did not move from where she was, staring at the plaque that they would place just in front of the seal. Her husband's name, the year when he was born, the year when he was murdered. She would forever see those words engraved and laid over with silver.  
  
She raised the hand that touched him last, still naked, and brought it over her face, inhaling the last of Lex that remained. She replaced the glove now.  
  
"Ma'am," a timid voice said from behind her.  
  
Chloe did not turn around. She merely reached with her arms until her daughter was transferred to her embrace. The maid vanished into the background again as Chloe held Brianna, urging her to wave goodbye to her daddy. The child, too young and innocent to comprehend what they were doing in the grassy part of town, waved her little hand in the direction that Chloe pointed to.  
  
The baby turned to face Chloe and cradled her face in both hands. "Mama," the baby said. Chloe smiled and allowed more tears to come now, when the people have gone away, back to their cozy homes that Lex's company had enabled them to buy, back to their little families that Lex's investment allowed them to support. It was safe to cry now. The display would only be between herself, Brianna and Lex.  
  
"I'm sorry, Chloe."  
  
She sucked in her breath and held her daughter closer to her body. Chloe shook her head slightly, trying to convince herself that he was not here.  
  
"I know that I can say it a hundred times and it will not make a difference. But I really am sorry."  
  
Chloe closed her eyes. "Please leave. I would like to be alone with my family."  
  
Hesitance before the sound of his boots moving further away. Chloe waited until she believed she was truly alone before reaching on the ground for the flowers they had brought. Clutching the stems on one hand and supporting her daughter with the other, Chloe walked to the name inside the mausoleum that she would never let go.  
  
She handed the flowers to Brianna. "Baby, give it to daddy."  
  
The child dropped the stems in front of the vault. "Bye bye, daddy. Love you, daddy."  
  
And Chloe walked away, heavily. The sun beat down on her and she hated it. She hated the Kansas sun so much. 


	11. For the Love Of

ii. For the Love Of  
  
The scenes replayed over and over in the wide screen. Bruce Wayne studied the face clearly. It had been so long, but for the way his heart clenched at the sight of her tears it was as if she happened in his life only yesterday.  
  
"Zoom," he commanded quietly.  
  
The camera focuses on Chloe's face, cropping her figure and blacking out everything in the background. Bruce slowly pulls himself out of his seat and walks over to the large screen, stopping in front of it and reaching out to the flat glass to trace the tear tracks. He only wished the warmth of his hand could brush away the wetness. In his ideal world, even this motion could erase the pain she so obviously felt. Mrs Luthor hid her feelings from world. This day, at Lex's funeral, all her walls had crashed around her.  
  
There was one thing he could not grapple with enough to understand. He had been with Chloe, close enough to kiss her and enough to have fallen irrevocably for her. For Bruce, when he walks out at night alone, the memory of being with her was enough to light up his entire world. How could Lex Luthor still have descended into the hell he did? How was it possible for a man to give in to darkness when he had someone like Chloe by his side? For the millionth time he cursed the man for hiding so much from his wife.  
  
Bruce wondered how he could face himself in the mirror next time, after having seen her grief, and knowing that he himself had caused it.  
  
There was one more thing to do, and it was his only way of holding on to her now, so far away she had been since being reunited with Lex. Bruce picked up the phone to check with the only man he trusted to keep her safe when he could not.  
  
He waited for him to answer the phone. His young friend was always so busy that it took a long time for his calls to be answered. When he heard the click that indicated that it was picked up, Bruce's senses adjusted easily to the noise. The recipient of the call was outside, and the conversation around him indicated a busy place.  
  
"I've seen the news coverage," Bruce said quietly. "She looks-Well, we both know how she looks."  
  
"Imagine what you've seen on your screen multiplied by a thousand, Bruce, because she hides her pain well."  
  
"Clark, where is she now?"  
  
Clark sighed, and Bruce heard the disappointment and acceptance mixed along with it. "We don't know."  
  
"I thought you were keeping an eye on her," Bruce replied, already thinking of where Chloe could have gone. He could not even hazard a guess. It had been so long since they were together. Bruce had left her to live her life when she decided to be with Lex.  
  
"She left on her plane last night without informing anyone. Even her father is anxious. She's not in the state, Bruce."  
  
"Who was with her?"  
  
"Brianna." A pause at Bruce's end of the line prompted Clark to explain further. He had forgotten that Bruce never did ask what Chloe's daughter was called. Even if it had been mentioned once or twice in the news, Bruce had always been careful not to delve into that part of the Luthors' life. Clark had always suspected that it had to do with hurt, although Bruce never would have admitted to it. "Their daughter," Clark supplied.  
  
If Bruce acknowledged the new information, he did not betray it to Clark. Instead, the billionaire shifted the conversation into another topic. "I want you to look into it, Clark," he said easily, assuming the role of leader so easily that Clark was reminded of their other jobs together. As an equable man, Clark had always allowed Bruce to take on the responsibility of head. It was a rule that complemented Bruce Wayne so well. "Just call me with any news."  
  
"Where will you be at?"  
  
Bruce was already heading out of the entertainment room. "I'll be in my office."  
  
Clark could imagine his friend and ally looking out of the glass windows of the top floor of his building, looking down over the city he stood vanguard of. While Bruce secured the city, who would look after Bruce Wayne now? He pushed the niggling idea in his head and forced himself to remember that despite the last couple of years, Lex Luthor was still and would always remain one of his best friends.  
  
~~  
  
His shoes had that distinct sound that screamed to everyone in the lobby that an expensively attired man was passing by. Bruce had never been bothered by it. In fact, he had been walking through the lobby everyday of his life that he pretty much ignored that fact. Still, the events that happened so quickly over the last week had brought home some memories that made him aware of everything around him.  
  
When he stepped into the elevator and reached for the top floor button, his memories, pushed to the back of his mind out of necessity, came rushing back to him. He remembered that one night when he saw the shivering young woman in inappropriate clothes just at the corner of the elevator. It had changed his life forever. Now he could not help but entertain thoughts of rekindling what was cut off so abruptly. And knowing his part in what had happened to her, he felt dirty and manipulative for even letting those thoughts pass through his head.  
  
Knowing that she had lost her husband, the man she had admitted to him will always come first in her heart, even when she had thought him dead, merely fueled a fire in his heart that he had been forced to cover up.  
  
Bruce walked briskly towards his office. It was after lunch now. He never arrived so late. This time was an exception though. He could not wait until tonight to view the clips of Lex Luthor's funeral released earlier in the day. He found his secretary's desk empty. His assistant must have concluded that he would not be coming in today.  
  
He pushed the door open and breathed the sterile scent of his office. His senses honed to such heights over the years, he stiffened at the stray whiff of sunshine in the air. Gotham never smelled like sunshine. His eyes sought out the golden head that shone in contrast to the blacks and grays of the room.  
  
At the same time that he found her, the woman turned around on the swiveling chair and smiled sadly at him from under the black gauze that hung from her small hat. Bruce stopped in his tracks and stared at her. She rose from her seat and took off the veil, tossing it on the desk. His eyes ran over her form. She wore black from head to foot, and it was a crime to him. She should never be in mourning again. The only relief were the pearls on her throat and on her ears. Lex Luthor's diamond glared at him from a hand she revealed after pulling off her glove.  
  
And when he found himself again, Bruce strode towards her and caught her in his arms, embracing her tightly and securely so that he would never let her go. Chloe's arms rose to wrap around his shoulders. Into his ear, she murmured, "I saw it with my own eyes. He's gone, Bruce. This time it's for real. His last breath was against my lips."  
  
His eyes darkened at her choked words. These were things he knew. He had seen her kiss the mangled face of her husband as he lay dying on the floor. He pulled away slowly and picked up her hand. "Chloe, what can I do to make the pain go away? Tell me. I'll do anything."  
  
She shook her head slowly, tearful eyes meeting his. "You can't. Nothing can ever do that. But you can help me."  
  
"What do you need?"  
  
"I want you to help me find his killer." Slowly, his grip on her hand slackened. "I'm willing to spend everything that Lex left me to kill his murderer."  
  
"Chloe, are you sure-"  
  
"Bruce, help me find and kill the Batman." 


	12. To Foster for Another

iii. To Foster for Another  
  
The child's golden hair glowed even in the dim light of the study. She slept as silently as her mother did. Once upon a time, he added to himself after a quick glance to the far corner of the room confirmed his suspicions. Bruce leaned over the baby and took her in his arms. The little girl sought the comfortable curve of his body as she settled at once to the familiar yet unfamiliar form of a man carrying her. He idly wondered how often Lex Luthor took his daughter in his arms.  
  
Chloe sat still wrapped up in her world of words and glowing answers. He stopped a few feet away from her and waited to be noticed. Her eyes were glued to the screen in a way he had never seen them before. Bruce reminded himself that the year he was with her, she had been a different woman.  
  
She had been immortalized in his brain all these years like an Impressionist model, lights playing on shadows that hid behind the angles of her jaw, her cheeks, her nose as certainly as leaves of sun-dappled trees.  
  
When he closed his eyes, he could still see the multimedia collage at the back of his eyelids, of news clips and paparazzi videos catching every furtive movement, every private appearance. Always she had been there, perfectly coiffed, her lips curved into the perfect smile, or laughing and beaming at her husband or her baby. Always she had there, flawless and out of reach.  
  
Bruce Wayne adored every glimpse of the woman. But he had loved, and never stopped loving, the sad-eyed stranger who bled inside. He wondered if there was a certain sickness that would give a name to what he had become. Chloe, at this moment when she was intent on vengeance and still grieving inside, was more beautiful to him than all the times he had seen her content his the arms of another man. Was it only because that was the woman he had fallen in love with? Was it only that she had never been close enough to touch when she was complete? Why did he have Chloe Sullivan only when she was incapable of a smile?  
  
"Still up."  
  
Her eyes flickered to the man standing in front of her, intending to merely acknowledge his presence. Her eyes were captured by the sight of Brianna in the arms of a man who owned part of her heart. He threatened all the defenses that she prized. She forced her gaze away from that spot on his neck where Brianna had buried her nose.  
  
"Do you know what your husband had been up to the last year?"  
  
He saw her swallow visibly, her eyes lose focus from the screen. The interest for whatever article was up on her browser had long gone, at the same time that she realized he was present in the room. The forced disinterest that she had injected in her demeanor at the sight of her daughter easily curving into Bruce's body the way she used to with her own father evaporated almost imperceptibly.  
  
She had never been one to allow herself to be backed into a corner. He had never pushed her in any way then. It did not mean that he would not start now. "Do you, Mrs Luthor?"  
  
"Yes," she bit out.  
  
"And you stayed?" his voice rumbled. Brianna stirred in his arms. Before she could answer, Bruce shushed her and mumbled soft incomprehensible words while rubbing warm circles on the girl's back. Brianna sighed softly and tightened her arms around Bruce's neck, in her sleep pretending that she was not fatherless. Chloe's eyes softened for a moment, wanting to take her daughter. "I'll be right back."  
  
A few minutes later when he returned, the laptop was closed on the desk. The small light was still on, so he knew that she had not given up her task for the night. "Where did you put her?"  
  
"In the room I had aired for you." She nodded her thanks. "You knew, but you did not leave."  
  
"You don't understand, Bruce. When he was with Brianna, he was never different. He was beyond comparison. With us, he was the Lex I loved. He adored me."  
  
"He showed you a different man."  
  
"Will it give you peace to know that I will kill the Batman not for taking away Lex Luthor but for taking away a husband and a father? That should be fair enough, Bruce."  
  
"You're purposely blinding yourself then."  
  
Her eyes glittered with a strength she had been devoid of since leaving Kansas. "I will not rest until the man responsible for his death is as cold as Lex." And she broke her own heart with each word. Chloe squeezed his eyes tightly shut and she grabbed at the edge of the table, gripping the wood. A gasp escaped from her lips. The thought of his warm, pliant body, which laid beside hers for years, as cold as the snow that kissed her tears away when she hid from pain the first time she went to Gotham City, contracted her heart with an icy fist. Her grip slipped from the wood and she collapsed on her elbows, releasing a keening cry. She found herself helped into the chair by invisible hands. Her cheeks trembled and her eyes burned.  
  
"He's dead," a voice overhead stated firmly. It was Bruce's voice; Bruce's hands ushered her to her seat. "You know that. You know he's dead."  
  
Chloe turned her head aside in a futile attempt to banish the images of a beautiful man's decay. No matter the direction, the picture remained. She moaned. "Make it stop!"  
  
He knew that she did not even see him. With everything she saw under those closed eyes, she broke. "Then open your eyes," he commanded. "Open your eyes, Chloe." She did, to meet pools of such dark blue. "Hold my gaze. Don't let go."  
  
Neither blinked nor looked away. He was well-versed with the horrific images in her mind right at that moment. He had had his share of those pictures as a young kid. Bruce forced her attention to him.  
  
"You knew that he was funding experiments that caused children to sicken and die within days, Chloe. You stayed beside him. Does that make you as much of a murderer as Lex, Mrs Luthor?"  
  
Chloe snapped out of the enforced trance. She tore her arms away from his grip and stood up. "You have no call to say that!" She took a deep breath and warded him away when he stepped towards her. "Lex," she sobbed. "Bri. They were my life, Bruce. Lex committed these crimes outside my home. Let him be tried behind me."  
  
"What happened to you?"  
  
She released a soft laugh together with the sob. "You never really knew me," she reminded him.  
  
"I loved you. I can't not have known you." His words were always quiet. Why then were they always stronger?  
  
"Bruce, you are too old to be naïve." She smiled sadly. "I loved my husband beyond," her breath caught. "I loved Lex," Chloe stated simply. "And there you stand telling me atrocities that another man did. Not my Lex. I will maintain that. Now tell me if to you, I really knew him."  
  
"Chloe-"  
  
"I will kill the Batman."  
  
"Is that more important than your daughter?"  
  
"I need to do this, Bruce. I need this closure. I cannot be the mother she needs me to be until I put this behind me. My husband's killer has to die."  
  
It was safe to step towards her now. Bruce walked slowly and stopped the distance of an arm away. "And in the meantime you put Brianna on hold."  
  
"Never in my heart though."  
  
"You did not come to me to kill the Batman for you," he said as it dawned on him. "You came to me for Brianna, to be with her while you pursued this on your own."  
  
"Did you really expect me to sit in your Gothic mansion while you hunted the night for the villain?"  
  
He smiled briefly. "You did say I am naïve."  
  
"I'm a Luthor, Bruce. I fight my own battles."  
  
"So you do," he murmured. "All these years and you chose me."  
  
"I could think of no one who had as much love to give as you, Bruce."  
  
Bruce walked over to the laptop and turned it off. "I had a glimpse once, of a woman who could. But she flew to Kansas and gave all her love away."  
  
"Not all. Never all."  
  
"Good. Now go to your room. The dead can wait. You have a living beauty lonely for her mom."  
  
tbc 


	13. Genuine Pretenses

iv. Genuine Pretenses  
  
Spending the next few days with the beautiful baby was an experience he would treasure forever. He had been a little uncertain about taking on responsibility for such a young life. Although Chloe remained in the gothic mansion with them, he had agreed to assume the role of the girl's guardian while the mother traced clues to track down the man who killed her husband. Yet by the time Brianna fluttered the thick dark gold eyelashes that framed her pretty eyes, Bruce Wayne accepted that he had a dangerous weakness for the Sullivan girls. He seemed to fall in love with them within moments of meeting them.  
  
Before they came into his life, he spent his days locked up in his office and his nights attending charity balls. While people saw it as altruism, Bruce had always seen the numerous causes that he supported as his way of intermingling with people whom he had shut himself off from since the time his parents were killed. He preferred to stay away from his house because despite the length of time that had passed since his own tragedy, the mansion was his reminder of every pleasant moment that he spent with his mother and father. In his lonely life, he could not afford happy memories to show him what a contrast his life was today.  
  
For the past week, Bruce found himself eager to close deals even though he knew that dragging out conferences would put the contractor on the edge enough to offer low prices that would enable Wayne Enterprises to triple its profits for each project. Instead of staying there late reviewing the quarterly reports and looking over new proposals, Bruce left the office at precisely five o'clock and headed home to see if Chloe had taken a break from her investigation long enough to have a bite to eat. He would pass by Brianna's playroom, his old one when he was a kid, aired and stocked with plenty of new toys, to see if the girl was yet bored or tired from being left in the same room all day.  
  
Today, Bruce had pushed away his computer and risen from his seat in the middle of a conversation with his assistant. The office had become a silent cave to him. Somehow, a room was not quite a comfortable without the hysterical giggling of a three-year-old. The smile that teased his lips as he dismissed the man did not go unnoticed. His assistant may have wondered what caused the CEO to suddenly decide that workday was over, but since he had his own life to live and for the first time he was receiving a half-day without filing for it himself, he only left Bruce to make his calls.  
  
He arrived home around ten in the morning and made his way up the flight of stairs to stop before the door of the playroom. Bruce pushed the door open to reveal Brianna sitting at the center staring at the dollhouse that he had bought for her. The intricate Victorian was bigger than she was, and was full of miniature furniture and residents. Alfred knelt beside the girl, murmuring soft words which the girl did not seem to heed.  
  
"Brianna," Bruce said softly. The girl did not turn around.  
  
Alfred rose to his feet and walked over towards him. "Master Bruce, what are you doing home at this hour? Was there anything you needed?"  
  
Bruce shook his head at the old man. He reached out to pat the butler's arm. "I thought that I could use some company. What is wrong with Brianna?"  
  
The old man appeared concerned as he glanced back at the blonde girl who was still quietly regarding the playhouse. "I have no idea, Master Bruce. She opened the present while I retrieved her breakfast from the kitchen. When I arrived, she was like this."  
  
Bruce's gaze remained on the girl, who reached into one of the rooms in the house to draw out one of the dolls. He turned to Alfred and requested, "Would you give us a moment?"  
  
Left alone with Chloe's daughter, Bruce made his way silently to the dollhouse. He tugged at his pants to sit on the floor, his legs folded beneath him. He did not care about the crease of the suit. He kept his eyes focused on the normally vivacious child who seemed absorbed with the doll in her hands, with the dollhouse in front of her.  
  
"Brianna, how would you like to go to the park with me?"  
  
She frowned down at the miniature man she held, and glanced up at the room where miniatures of a child and woman sat in front of the table. A lovely lower lip thrust out.  
  
"Don't you think you deserve to run in the park? We'll buy cheesedogs and Coke." He extended his hand, waiting to see if she would even recognize his presence. "Come on, Brianna. We'll find your sweater in your closet. It's pretty cold outside. We don't want you to get sick."  
  
Deep blue eyes turned to him, and Bruce braced himself at the intensity of her sad gaze. The girl blinked and held the doll out to him, "No daddy."  
  
Bruce took a deep breath and returned the miniature man to the room. His action caused the girl to shake her head fiercely. "It's supposed to go here, Bri."  
  
"No," she protested. "Just mommy and Bri."  
  
"Is this daddy?" The girl nodded. He could understand that for a young child, Lex's loss could be taken either as something that merely happened or as a great tragedy. Someone as young as Brianna could take the death of her father to mean that Lex had left them, and easily recover. Despite the fact that children could deal with loss more easily than adults, he did not want her to grow up thinking that she was left by her father. He slipped in to the solution that he himself had to turn to at the time, which was to think of Alfred as a father. But he had been older than Brianna and he could never fully trade the image of his parents with substitutes. The three-year-old was another issue though. "Can I be this doll?"  
  
Her bright eyes convinced him that it worked. She took the doll from him and replaced it beside the miniature of the little girl. "Me, mommy and you."  
  
"That's right, Brianna."  
  
"Come to the park?" He nodded. "Can mommy come?"  
  
He took the girl's hand and rose to his feet. Hand in hand, they left the playroom and proceeded to the small study that Chloe had been using as her office. "Let's see, shall we?"  
  
When they arrived outside the study, Brianna knocked on the door before he could even open it. The door swung open to reveal Chloe, with rings under her eyes and eyeglasses pushed up on her head. "Hey!" she greeted breathlessly. Her eyes were drawn down to where her daughter was staring up at her excitedly. "How are you, baby?" Chloe picked Brianna up and peppered kisses all over the little girl's face.  
  
"When did you start wearing eyeglasses?" were the first words to come from his mouth. She looked adorable with them, so unlike the chic and sophisticated images of her taken through the years. Dressed in casual clothes and without a trace of makeup on, she looked even more like the Chloe he had fallen in love with, before her role as Mrs. Luthor required her to watch everything that she wore and said in public. He had spent those years while she was married concerned with the thought that only Lex Luthor saw her free and beautiful the way he remembered.  
  
Chloe's hand flew to her head self-consciously. She pulled off the glasses and smiled. "This is just for reading. What brings you home so early?"  
  
"Have you eaten?"  
  
"I had a sandwich," she informed him. When he appeared as though he would disapprove, she held up a hushing hand. "It was a very large one, with meat and vegetables. Ask Alfred if you don't believe me."  
  
He stared at her for the longest moment. When she started to fidget with Brianna in her arms, Bruce nodded. "I believe you."  
  
"Come to park, mommy!" Brianna grabbed her cheeks and turned her face to hers. The girl smiled brightly in invitation. "Come with us!"  
  
Chloe smiled back tiredly. "Oh baby girl, I can't. Mommy's working."  
  
Bruce regarded her with hooded eyes. He watched as the girl tried to convince her mother a few more times before finally deciding that as many refusals would be detrimental to the child's self-confidence. "Looks like mommy can't join us. Let's go and leave your mom to her research, Brianna."  
  
The girl did not show an ounce of disappointment and somehow, for a mother who had never had to share her baby with anyone other than her husband, seeing Brianna come to Bruce caused a sinking feeling in her heart. She kissed the small girl on her forehead. "Have fun, Bri."  
  
"All right. You should take a rest," he told her. "We'll just drop by her room for her sweater and coat and then we'll pass by here again to tell you that we're leaving."  
  
Bruce handed the girl a light blue sweater and a green scarf, the items of clothing made in material that was probably more expensive that the entire wardrobe of other kids. "Okay, Brianna. Since you're going to be a big girl soon, you can dress yourself up and meet me at the study, okay? I have to talk to your mommy and ask her if I can buy you ice cream too."  
  
The girl skipped in delight as she took the clothes. Bruce made his way back to the study and knocked briskly. Chloe had made it clear to him that she did not want her presence in the house to make a difference in his coming and going. In fact, she had insisted that she be allowed to stay in a hotel instead. He was the one who told her that she had to stay with him, the one who went out of his way to give her privacy.  
  
When she did not open the door as quickly as she did earlier, he slowly turned the knob and peeked inside. The glowing computer screen once more lit her face. This time, the glow was reflected on her sleeping visage. Bruce walked over slowly towards her, careful not to startle her. When he reached her side, he shook her gently. "Chloe, no sleeping on the chair."  
  
She woke up slowly and peeked at him from still half-closed eyes. "Are you and Brianna leaving?"  
  
"In a while. Will you go to bed?"  
  
"I think I should."  
  
Bruce nodded in approval. "I'll take you to your room and pick up your daughter. The two of you are such a handful," he said with overwhelming affection.  
  
"Of course," she replied sleepily. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into."  
  
He escorted her, still stumbling, to her bedroom and helped her settle into bed. When she drifted off to sleep easily, he pulled the covers over her. Soon, he would have to send some clues in her investigation her way to make certain that she would have enough feeling of accomplishment to voluntarily rest before exhaustion forced her. Bruce leaned down and took a deep breath, allowing his senses to be satisfied with her scent. He pondered for the longest moment before pressing his lips on her cheek. "I think I do, Chloe. And I can't wait."  
  
tbc 


	14. Anything She Wanted

v. Anything She Wanted  
  
She was beautiful. Bruce imagined that that was exactly how Chloe Sullivan must have looked as a toddler. Brianna ran around the park wrapped in the clothes they had picked for her. She was glowing under the sun that was almost never present. He gloried in the thought that for once, Gotham was bright because this girl was there.  
  
Brianna crushed the grass beneath her boots. When she ventured to the portion that was supposed to be off limits, Bruce allowed her. He would pay for the replacement of the patches of blue grass that the girl would ruin in her delight about being free to run. Bruce understood how it must have felt for the girl, cooped up inside four thick walls, surrounded by security since birth. This was an experience that Brianna had never had, perhaps would never have had she grown up behind her father's shadow.  
  
She whirled around in circles, laughing and waving at him. He suspected that the girl did it to make sure that she had not been abandoned there. The frequent calls to his attention her way of making certain that she knew exactly the direction where she was going to run should she need Bruce again.  
  
"We have a problem."  
  
Bruce did not need to turn to see who it was. "I realize that."  
  
"Bruce," Clark continued, not at all offended by the coldness in which Bruce held himself apart from him, "I know this woman. I loved this woman before either you or Lex did. She will find out eventually, especially when what she's looking for is right under her nose."  
  
"Maybe that's in my favor. I would be the last man that Chloe would suspect."  
  
Clark sighed deeply and looked in the direction that Bruce was looking. His lips curved in a faint smile. Over the last few years, as Lex drew further away from him, he had missed this child. One look at her, in the hospital, and he knew that he would adore Brianna because of how much of her mother she bore in her face, in her smile. "I want to hold her."  
  
"No," came the quick answer. "She's a smart girl. She will tell her mother that she had seen you."  
  
"She's three, Bruce," Clark reasoned.  
  
"She's got both Chloe's and Lex Luthor's genes."  
  
Because Bruce's point was valid and strong, Clark remained standing behind Bruce, away from anyone's prying eyes. He had loved Lex like a brother despite his retreat into the darkness. Clark could not help but feel a tinge of loathing towards Bruce for what had happened. "You did not need to kill him Bruce." And it all came down to that, feelings he did not really want to voice but had been killing him since it happened.  
  
"You know as well as I do that we had to," came the quiet answer.  
  
Perhaps his bitterness lay on the fact that after everything that had happened, Chloe chose to run to this man whom she knew for six months while she turned away from him. One thing he would never commit the grave mistake in saying, was that often he wondered if Bruce did not do it because of Chloe. There were limits he still followed. Maybe he would always suspect that part of the 'accident' was that Bruce had always wanted her. He would never voice it though. "How do feel holding that girl in your arms knowing you were the one responsible for her father's death?"  
  
A long pause. But then that had always been the case when you spoke to a man as taciturn as Bruce Wayne. "Good. Brianna will not grow up exposed to her father's crimes."  
  
"You killed a man, Bruce," Clark said. It seemed to him that in this case, Bruce Wayne had suddenly forgotten the code that they have been following since they decided to fight crime. Bring the criminals to justice. Save the victims. But you never kill a human bring, no matter how disgusting the record, no matter how evil he was perceived. You never kill.  
  
The blue eyes that turned to him were still cold when they turned to Clark Kent. "I know that, Clark. Every time I see Chloe crying, when she thinks she's alone, I remember. That has not escaped my nightmares. But it was something that had to be done. I am sorry I killed a man, Clark. But at the same time, I'm proud I had the strength to do that."  
  
"We fight for truth and justice," Clark recited, in a way that he realized afterwards could sound irritating to someone who had a burden as heavy as Bruce. Still, he continued, "A real hero does not take justice into his own hands."  
  
"Spare me adages I've already heard. That's why you are the hero and I'm the avenger."  
  
"Just take care, Bruce. No matter how much you've honed yourself avenging the wronged in this city, you will never compare to a woman bent on revenge." Clark's hand closed over Bruce's upper arm, squeezing tightly in a silent show of support. "And I know you would not hurt Chloe, even if she were holding the barrel of a gun to your temple."  
  
The golden little girl bounced up and down as she decided she wanted to pluck one of Gotham's rare flowers from a vine just beyond her reach. Bruce smiled, knowing that within seconds he would there with her, lifting her up just enough to reach the highest and brightest flower of the bunch. "I'll protect them both even from myself," he confirmed. Without saying goodbye, he strode to aid Brianna.  
  
They returned to the mansion with a bright yellow flower tucked into her ear, and another flower woven into the crown of his own hair. He had never appeared sillier before, yet he had never been happier either. Bruce carried the tired girl who was now drooling the shoulder of his immaculate shoulder. He opened the door to the bedroom to check on Chloe, only to find it empty.  
  
He swung the door open to the study and was greeted by brilliant eyes and a relieved smile. "You're not asleep."  
  
"I found something!" she breathed excitedly. Bruce steeled himself for the news. "The commissioner of the city uses a signal to call Batman. I know where it is. And it's the perfect way to lure the bastard into a trap."  
  
"I see."  
  
"Bruce, don't you see!" When her voice rose an octave, she forced it down. "I can finally put this behind me. It's going to be over soon, Bruce." She walked over to the man who held her daughter as if she were his. "Can you look after Brianna for me? One last night, Bruce. And then I can be her mother again."  
  
In her eyes, he saw the triumph and the hope, the relief and the trepidation. It was not as if he could ever deny her anything. His free hand cupped her cheek. At least before that final meeting that she would plan, he could do what he had always dreamed of doing. He leaned down and gently covered her lips with his. "For you, Chloe, anything you want." 


	15. End of All

vi. End of All  
  
It was magnificent. The bat signal cut through the smog and remained fast in place on the sky. Chloe could almost hear the sound of Batman's wings taking him to the rooftop.  
  
What a fateful night to end the story. Chloe Luthor was about to show the dark avenger her brand of justice. And then this will end. Brianna will live the way all beautiful little girls deserved to. Her daughter would have a parent who would give her full attention and all the love the world had to give. Chloe would find peace. Everything would be forgotten.  
  
On a cold, dark Gotham night that started this chapter. On a cold dark Gotham night would the storybook close.  
  
Her eyes drifted shut and she remained standing, listening for every change and shift in the wind. The way you prepared yourself for a bat is to blind yourself and focus on the sounds. There was a muffled thud from several yards away. Chloe heard the footsteps coming towards her. They stopped, and now she felt the warmth of another body in her vicinity.  
  
She opened her eyes to face the masked man. Her eyes clouded and instead of the words she had prepared for, Chloe could only curl her hands into fists and pound on his unyielding body. The Batman barely made a sound as she spent her energy hitting him with all that she could give.  
  
"Why don't you fight?" she gasped when she was spent. "You are so good at fighting, Batman. Why won't you fight?"  
  
Slowly, he closed his hands over her wrists and held her arms together. "Is that what you want?" he asked calmly.  
  
"I want you dead," she spat out viciously.  
  
"You have a gun," he pointed out. "Use it."  
  
She narrowed her eyes and fumbled for the gun in her bag. Chloe leveled the gun, pointing the barrel to his forehead, right between the eyes.  
  
He waited still as the night. "Kill me."  
  
Her finger latched on to the trigger and started to press. It was easy. Lex had stood behind her, kissed her temple and counted in her ear. 'One. Two. Three.' She knew how to use the weapon because her husband gave her the lessons. The gun shook in her hands. She trembled until she thought the heavy gun would drop and by chance let off a shot.  
  
His large gloved hand closed over the gun. He told her, "You searched for me not because you want to kill me. You want me to kill you, don't you?" Chloe did not answer. "What about your daughter?"  
  
"She's with a beautiful man who would love her much more than I can," she answered.  
  
"How can you say that? She's your baby."  
  
Chloe closed her eyes. Her arms were starting to weaken. Were his hand not holding the gun, she would have surely released it. "You took away my heart," she informed him very faintly. "I can't love anymore. I don't know how because you've killed every bit of feeling I had when you killed my husband."  
  
The dark knight stepped close, not pushing her arms down. He stepped closer until the barrel was pressed tightly against his skin. "You are more than Lex Luthor's wife," he said firmly. "Go back to who you were before."  
  
The eyes, the voice, the words. Everything she recognized and denied until that moment. Chloe lowered the gun and with her free arm, pushed away the mask. "I didn't want to believe until now."  
  
Bruce Wayne, stripped of anonymity, did not bother to deny. "When you were with me?" he asked.  
  
"I was half the woman I was. I cannot live like this."  
  
"I'm in love with you." To his own ears, he sounded defeated.  
  
Chloe held up the gun on her palm again, with the barrel facing outwards. She did not look at him, only at the silver weapon. "Then you know what I want you to do."  
  
Bruce took the gun.  
  
The bat signal flickered on the sky, mystical in the way that it shone against no opaque wall yet managed to stay so solid. Gotham in the nighttime the same as Gotham at any other hour. On the rooftop, two people stood stiffly as they gazed at each other.  
  
The gun was lifted.  
  
A shot rang out.  
  
~~  
  
Chloe had never been more exhausted in her entire life. She walked through the Gothic manor, discarding her gloves where they fell. She unbuttoned her jacket and shrugged it off. Chloe pulled the pins out of her hair and allowed the blonde locks to curl in abandon.  
  
There was only one destination at that particular moment. She opened the door to her daughter's room and looked in on her princess. Chloe sat down on the bed and touched her daughter's cheek.  
  
Brianna came awake at the unfamiliar contact. Her eyes opened and she smiled brightly at her mother, reminding Chloe that she had once been just like Brianna. How long it had been. "You're back, mommy!"  
  
"Yes, sweetheart," Chloe replied. "Mommy's back."  
  
Chloe lay beside her daughter that night. While Brianna dozed, she spent her last hours in the city staring out into the darkness. The sun rose outside and the television in the room turned on automatically for the morning news. Chloe did not bother to look. The voice of the anchorwoman barely made a difference to her.  
  
"A shocking morning to Gotham City and the rest of America. Before morning, the dark vigilante, the Batman, was found dead at the rooftop of the governor's office. More astounding news as the Batman was revealed to be the city's foremost businessman Bruce Wayne. Police are not investigating the apparent suicide of the crimefighter."  
  
Carefully extricating her arm out from under her daughter, Chloe sat up on the bed and picked up a bright yellow band from the table. She tucked the hair away from her face with it. Slowly, she rose, careful not to wake Brianna. There were tickets to book and people to call. She was going home.  
  
Within hours, Chloe had her daughter seated beside her aboard a commercial flight to Kansas. No one was waiting in the Smallville manor but a host of servants who would substitute for family. Brianna would grow used to the Kansas sun again. She would play in a field that had once been infested with meteor rocks and someday, maybe in a year or two, she would encounter a meteor mutant. It was all part of Smallville. Perhaps an incident like it would bring Brianna closer to Chloe's husband. For Chloe, she would come home to a cold bed and a hundred rooms of memories. She had a million moments with Lex that she would never get back. She was coming home to the cold forbidding sanctuary situated in the middle of Kansas in the summer.  
  
She turned up the volume of the earphones to hear the movie playing. Chloe hoped the dialogue would drown out the last vestiges of the tape she had found in her bag.  
  
[I]Chloe, I leave my home tonight with the sole purpose of bringing you back. I have never stopped loving you. Everyday I see you grow lonelier I blame myself for what I had done.  
  
Now my only goal is to make you happy. I will do anything if it means ending your pain. I will be completely satisfied with whatever I have to do as long as I put closure on this chapter of your life.  
  
I see the end of this as either of two things. One, you forgive me and find in your heart that you love me as much as you did Luthor. Two, we find ourselves at an impasse that I will end in the only way I know how. The truth is, even now, I cannot see how the light would penetrate the clouds. Gotham is a dark city and we are in a dark world. I understand how deeply you loved Lex, and I cannot blame you for your consuming need to face your husband's killer. Love makes us do the most insane things. I know. I leave to face you prepared for anything.  
  
Give Brianna my undying love.[/I]  
  
She turned the volume at full blast, drowning out the voice that could not be drowned. Chloe released the tears she had not cried since her husband's funeral. Finally, it was safe to cry.  
  
end 


End file.
